To many, this may look like I drew the lion in the grass with Photoshop, but that’s not the case. I did not touch anything in this picture. It is exactly as I took it.

Interestingly, the reason the lion looks like a painting is because the pixels are spread out which makes the details softer. At the time I shot this picture, I was just transitioning from film to digital and had a small point and shoot 5 megapixel camera. If I had a camera with more megapixels, I’m not sure I would have gotten the same effect in the photo. That’s where the magic happens. I zoomed in to frame the lion with the tree in the background, but let the camera focus. This made the lion appear like a drawing or painting because of its natural camouflage in the red oat grass.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Excerpt from: Moments in Time Captured Forever; You Don’t Need a Good Camera to Take Good Pictures. […]

Today I had a party to celebrate my book being published this year! It went live online at the end of August. It was so nice having my friends and family here to support me. It’s been a long process since the beginning when I had the idea for my book in 2009. I am grateful I found Balboa Press to help me see my project though. It felt especially good to hear how proud my parents are of me. When I started this project with another company, they weren’t so thrilled. To make a long story short, the first company went out of business. The second company took over the projects as a favor to the first, but then dropped me three years later without having produced anything they said they would. So, in 2014 I produced my own book with Shutterfly. It was expensive, even with their sales, and I knew I needed to find another way to publish my book so I could sell it for a reasonable price.

Actually, one of my friends who came to the party introduced me to Hay House Radio and the “I Can Do It” conferences. I went to one in 2012 by myself and then to another one in 2014 with her. While walking around the event, I thought I’d give my information to the representative of Balboa Press, the self publishing division of Hay House Publishing. I had been doing research into self publishing, but hadn’t started anything with any of them at that point. So, when Balboa Press called, I was excited and decided to start working with them. I’m so glad I did! They were so thorough and helpful. Others complained about having a new representative for each division of the process, but I loved it. To me, it meant I was working with the person who knew the most about that part of the process and I was in good hands.

I am happy with how the book turned out and am proud to have my name on the cover. It’s not necessarily a coffee table book like I planned, but it looks good. I plan on writing another book and will most likely use Balboa Press again.